Breaking News: PetVille launches on Facebook

Zynga, the company behind Facebook game hits FarmVille and Cafe World, have released its latest game - PetVille.

PetVille joins the legions of pet simulation games like Pet Society, Happy Pets and NeoPets. We'll have more information as it becomes available.

Just our quick impression is that the game borrows heavily from PlayFish's Pet Society (which borrowed heavily from Nintendo games such as Nintendogs and Animal Crossing) Like other pet simulation games, animals can be customized (and PetVille also includes a pet randomizer).

PetVille's release is par of the course for Zynga. PetVille follows Zynga's recent patterns of letting other companies innovate a game category, review what works, then release their own version of the game using their secret social game sauce. PetVille follows Mafia Wars, Cafe World, FarmVille and FishVille -- all released in the same manner.

Based on our first impressions of the game -- we predict Zynga's PetVille will soon be a leader on the Facebook gaming charts.

Check out our video introduction of the game. Thanks, Justin for the tip.